Howard Linskey: The Drop

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s no way to go.’

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about anything. Soon we’d be at the farm house.

What is it about certain nationalities and drinking? I mean, Geordies like a drink as much as the next man but they don’t go about it with the fervour of some countries. It’s not their religion. If they have one at all it’s football not drink. The Irish are different. They sink booze like they are trying to fill a deep, despairing void in their lives.

With the Russians, I’d always assumed they drank because there was sod all to do under the communists but they’ve been free of them for years, so it has to be something deeper than that, otherwise they’d have stopped when the wall came down and everyone got cable. It’s more like a national pastime to them. I dated a Russian girl once. She taught me a phrase ‘Do Dna’. The Russians say it to each other when they raise a glass. It means ‘to the bottom’. No half measures with these guys.

So it was no great surprise to me when Palmer reported back, ‘they make party,’ he said in a joke Russian accent, ‘slugging back the vodka. Guess they thought with Bobby and Finney out of the way, it was all over.’

‘Then we’ll leave them to it,’ I said, ‘until the morning, nice and early.’

I’d always known it would be handy having an ex-special forces guy on our team. I don’t know anyone else who would have calmly climbed from his car and walked across the fields in the pitch darkness to that farmhouse, watching close enough to see those sickos glugging back their vodka, then cheerfully reported back to me.

We left while it was still dark, Palmer leading the way, crouched low and moving silently across the fields to the farm house. The rest of us followed on behind, me wincing at every sound we made. By now I could have sworn Vitaly and his mates were capable of hearing every blade of grass we trampled.

There wasn’t much moon but if they’d bothered with sentries they’d have seen dark shapes breaking the horizon behind us and we would never have got close enough. Luckily for us, they must have thought their job was all but done. I never took my eyes off that farmhouse as it gradually drew nearer, its slate-grey walls growing bigger with every step.

We had to resist the temptation to run, knowing we needed to be silent. Instead we followed Palmer’s lead, walking slowly and fanning out, so we didn’t make one big, easy target.

The last thirty yards or so were the worst, out in the open with no cover to dive behind, knowing all it would take was some pissed-up Ivan stumbling out of the farmhouse for a piss or a cig and it would all be over. As soon as his mates heard him screaming blue murder, we wouldn’t have a chance in the open.

I could hear my own breathing, which sounded incredibly loud to me in my overwrought state, my breath coming out in plumes of white in front of me against the cold air. My heart was thumping in my chest again. What if I had messed this up? What if Palmer wasn’t half as good as we both thought he was and the Russians were better? We’d be dead that’s what – and if we were really lucky it would be quick. But if we weren’t… Christ I was scared.

We made it to the relative cover of the hedge and stopped, hunching down low. Palmer held up his hand and we all froze, quiet as we could be, while he had a listen. The farmhouse was silent. Maybe they were asleep already. Was it too much to hope that they’d all passed out drunk in there? Probably.

Palmer patted Danny quietly on the shoulder and pointed to a gap in the bushes a few yards along from where we were. Danny nodded and moved silently away towards his firing point. I’d never seen him so alert before.

Kinane and his boys knew what to do. Palmer had given them their instructions and, thankfully, the big man had deferred to the former soldier’s experience in these matters. Kinane and his sons got to their feet and walked round the hedge into the open farmyard. I watched them make their way with exaggerated care across the wide open space. Christ, this was worse than crossing the field. A little sliver of light coming out of the farmhouse illuminated a section of the land they were forced to cross. They were moving like children playing a game of Simon Says, pulling their feet up higher than normal, then placing their boots down on the gravel with a gentleness I’d have thought impossible of such big men. Even so, their footsteps were clearly audible in the silence of the night. Surely they’d be heard before they made it to the other side?

Then I heard a noise, a loud grating, piercing sound from within the house that made me start. Someone was shouting. They’d been spotted.

I shot a glance at the house, expecting the door to fly open and armed men to rush out at any second. I made a move for my gun and Palmer placed his hand firmly on mine to prevent me from doing something stupid. I looked back to the farm yard and saw Kinane standing there, poised somewhere between standing firm, ready to fire his gun, and getting ready to leg it. His hand was in the air in warning, keeping his sons from shooting at shadows or panicking into a sprint.

I still couldn’t place the sound. It was a shout, but was it really one of alarm? I could feel the sweat dripping from my armpits down my torso, cold and wet. I didn’t dare to even blink, in case I missed something that would have cost me my life.

Then there was another shout and another. It sounded like a quarrel. There was a slight pause which felt like an eternity, and then a final shout that was halfway between mocking and challenging. A second later, voices were raised again but this time in raucous, mirth-filled laughter. The Russkies had been having a laugh, a bit of banter from one man to the other, then someone had cracked a joke and they all fell about. They were winding each other up. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I thought I was going to drop down dead from the tension of it all. Even Palmer raised an eyebrow and exhaled in relief.

I glanced back at Kinane. He was still rooted to the spot. He looked round at his sons, nodded slowly and lowered his hand. He then walked the rest of the way across the farmyard with his boys following dutifully behind him, still clutching their shotguns. It had to be said they were disciplined; as good as any bunch of trained squaddies. Eventually, and not before time, they reached their position and disappeared from view.

Palmer nodded at me and I knew what that meant. It was our turn. I was glad Danny was in place to cover us and I was mightily relieved Kinane and his sons had made it, but now there was no dodging it. We had to cross that farm yard too; a big, open expanse of gravel that looked about the size of a football pitch to me now and we had to do it without making a sound. Worse than that, we had to get right up to the farmhouse itself, leaving just the width of a wall between us and men who liked to cut people into pieces for fun.

I took a deep breath, tried to forget that I wanted to be sick again and stood up. I followed Palmer as he made his way round the hedge. He paused to make sure the front door wasn’t about to be opened at any moment and we stepped out into the farmyard. We walked with excruciating slowness across the gravel drive way, closer to the building than Kinane and his sons, but only because we had no choice. The wind was blowing in the trees above us, I could feel the gravel under my feet and hear the slight scrunch-scrunch as my shoes settled on them with every step. My eyes were glued to the door of that farmhouse, though I knew that wouldn’t do me any good. If it opened, I was a dead man.

We were nearly there, so close I started to feel a wave of exultation. I could see the end of the building, the far gable wall we would disappear behind. Only another few steps; then it happened.